Stop treating the Test team like a club side: Healy

Melbourne : The legendary Ian Healy has asked Cricket Australia to stop ‘treating’ the country’s Test team like a ‘club’ side and advised the selectors to show faith in the embattled players who are bearing the brunt after suffering two heavy defeats in India.

“These players are the best we have and they need to know the selectors love them. It’s time Cricket Australia stopped treating the Australian Test team like a club side,” Healy said.

Now is the time for the same consistency of selection. We can’t afford the conjecture about who should be batting where — Ian Healy

The former wicket-keeper-batsman said the selectors had been making the same mistakes as the dark days of the mid-1980s, before Lawrie Sawle, Greg Chappell and Bob Simpson adopted a new policy.

“They started to select players based on character; men such as Geoff Marsh, Dean Jones and Steve Waugh. And once those players felt comfortable, they found some form at that level.

“Now is the time for the same consistency of selection. We can’t afford the conjecture about who should be batting where,” Healy was quoted as saying by the ‘Courier Mail’.

Healy was of the opinion that the selectors should be patient and must have the confidence in the players.

“Phil Hughes made two centuries in his first five Tests (and averaged 58.56) and was then dropped. Steve Waugh averaged 12 at the same time and took 26 Tests to score a century.

“Matthew Wade is good enough to bat at No.6, but the selectors must decide that. Show that confidence; the same for Moises Henriques and Nathan Lyon,” Healy said.

India started the four-match Test series with an eight-wicket win, before decimating the visitors by an innings and 135 runs to take a 2-0 lead.